and request to be included in the beta test. Give it a try!! I have been using the GC interface and I’m very pleased with all the call management functions. When Grand Central opens it’s site for ‘production’ use to the masses, it will revolutionize the way people use their phones. More soon… You can read my original post on this subject below.

Grand Central is a company that was purchased by Google about a year ago. It is the greatest new addition to phone management on the market and it’s free! Everyone should check this out. It is currently in Beta but I signed up a long long time ago and, while supplies last, I’ll send you an invitation if you leave a comment asking for one on this article…

When you sign up for Grand Central you get a new phone number. It is the last phone number you will ever need. It assigns you the number and then, through an intuitive GUI, it enables you to forward all your phones so they ring on that single number. You might think, why would I want to do that? It’s a little hard to explain all the advantages but there are many. I’ll do my best to outline the basics but to really understand things you should go to Grand Central’s website and check it out there. For one thing, now all your calls are logged on your computer, so you have a historical database of your incoming calls in a manageable format. It replaces your answering machine so you also have a historical database of all your incoming messages… It allows you to leave ‘group defined’ greetings for the incoming calls that you miss. This means that if you have someone you’ve been dying to get a hold of and you want to tell them something if they get to your answering machine, you can leave a customized message that will play as your announcement just for that phone number. This is a really impressive feature for both business and home use. You can have calls coming from certain numbers sent forward to certain phones. This way, if you always want your Mother to ring your home line instead of your business line you can assign all her phones to ring on your home line! As well, now you only have to remember one number and everyone can contact you via that one number and you set up the rules so when the call comes in it is sent to whatever number you would like it to be sent to. There is even a way to put a web call widget on your blog so anyone can call you and you don’t have to worry about them abusing the number because you have total and complete control when your calls come in! There are a hundred other great things that Grand Central can do to make managing your incoming calls more efficient so check out their website and if you want to give it a try, let me know and I’ll send you an invitation to the beta so you can get your own Grand Central Phone Number!